Wings & Waves – SPNL’s Newsletter May 2014

SPNL volunteer Berj Tamborian caught wild animals and filmed the scenes in Hima Anjar. Tamborian recorded the scenes he created by feeding several animals including bedger, hyena, river otter, porcupine, red fox, rock partridge, and weasle.Read more

Lebanese Environment Forum (LEF) and the Society for the protection of nature in Lebanon (SPNL) signed a partnership agreement with the municipality of Anjar to promote sustainable hunting practices in Lebanon through initiating a pilot model public hunting area – PHA announced by the municipality planned to be far from houses and the important bird areas IBA. Read more

Agriculture is one of the most productive sectors in the Rift Valley / Red Sea flyway region, serving as the economic backbone of many countries who are still struggling to catapult themselves from poverty and achieve food security for their rising populations. However, agriculture also poses serious threats to migratory soaring birds, notably agrochemical poisoning due to improper usage of pesticides, poison and veterinary drugs. Read more

Hima Anjar, a wildlife sanctuary and refuge to the Eurasian Penduline Tit, Remiz pendelinus By Dr. Ghassan Jaradi- Ornithologist The Penduline Tit is only found breeding in hanging nests over the water of Assi River in the North and over the water of Al Ghazal River at Anjar. I admired the people of Anjar on three occasions: 1) when they offered the Syrian Serin Serinus syriacus that is globally threatened a high level of protection

As part of the SEARCH project, an educational workshop was held in Andeket, Upper Akkar. The project which is funded by the European Union, and coordinated by the IUCN, aims to increase social and ecological resilience in watershed ecosystems of the Mediterranean Region in the face of climate and other drivers of change.

Featuring new photography from Kherbet Kanafar, West Bekaa, Lebanon, SPNL expert Andre Bechara explores the eggs of the partridge. The Partridge (Alectoris graeca) is a gamebird in the pheasant family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes, gallinaceous birds. This is a resident breeder in dry, open and often hilly country. It nests in a scantily lined ground scrape laying 5-21 eggs.

With sea turtles endangered throughout the world, Lebanon, and especially the South, has fast become known as one of the marine reptiles’ main nesting areas. Government measures designed to protect the animals and its fragile habitats have lagged behind the global trend. These photos of sea turtles were taken at sporting Beirut a couple of years back, sea turtles can still be sighted at sporting as they come up for air. The person in the photos is a university student that works part time as life guard at sporting his name is Imad Abou Akar. Sea turtles always come back to the place where they were born. Which means that if their nest was in Lebanon they will come back here to lay eggs even after 30 or 40 years. Read more

Mediterranean monk seal was seen near sporoting club – Beirut on 12 April 2014. The Mediterranean monk seal has been considered extinct in Lebanon for many years, and it is likely that this particular individual originates from elsewhere. On 2010, Simon Nadim, Managing Director of the Pure Tech Diving Facility in Batroun, Lebanon, reported two separate sightings of a Mediterranean monk seal, on the 15.08.2010 and 04.09.2010 respectively. Read more

Join us in this unique photography project to support the nomadic shepherds who maintain a way of life that benefits the environment.

The Mediterranean Consortium for Nature and Culture is a group of reputable Non-Profit organizations (DiversEarth, WWF North Africa, Doga Dernegi, Med-INA, Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon, Trashumancia y Naturaleza) working in the Mediterranean to support ordinary people who make a difference for nature – just by the way they live their lives. DiversEarth and the Mediterranean Consortium for Nature and Culture are putting together a traveling photography exhibition on transhumance and nomadic pastoralism. Read more

White Stork flies over a field near Reitwein

A white stork flies over a field near Reitwein, eastern Germany, on April 19, 2014.